bearedman8 wrote:
I've been taking 3 practice tests a week, and most of my RC practice has come from these practice tests (while I drill LG and LR from the Cambridge packets). I've been strictly timing each section. I normally take 3:30-4 minutes reading and diagramming the passage, and then will tackle the questions. I feel like I take too long on the passage, but I always finish the section in about 33 minutes.
I blind review pretty thoroughly. When I approach a question, I "slash" every answer choice that I know is wrong and I circle an answer choice if I know that it is right. If I reached the correct answer solely by process of elimination, or I had multiple contending right answers and I just picked the best one, then I'll mark it for blind review.
1. I actually don't feel incredibly confident on most of my answers in the RC section. Sometimes I forget to mark a question for blind review when I should have (I find that I only do this in RC), but I normally end up with about 10 problems for blind review after each section. I never really get confidence errors where I think I'm right and I'm wrong.
2. I'll read each question, refer to the passage if necessary, try to prephrase an answer, and then look at the answer choices. I try to find the correct answer by simultaneously (1) identifying directly the correct answer and (2) eliminating all incorrect answers choices. Pretty often, I'll pick between two contending answer choices. I don't normally refer back to the passage to decisively pick between the two because I don't feel like I have the time to do so.
I don't refer back to the passage for most global questions. I'll always refer back to the passage when the question stem offers me specific line or concept references. I feel like I might not be referring back to the passage enough, but I feel like that's because of time pressures.
3. I normally select the correct answer when blind reviewing, and try to identify where in the passage the correct answer is justified. This takes me quite a while to do. Sometimes I feel silly because the correct answer seems really obvious during blind review after I re-read the passage, but it didn't seem obvious at all when I was first doing the question.
4. My timing is pretty consistent. I normally finish each section in about 33 minutes, with 2 minutes for short verification/review. I don't always read the passages in the order in which they are presented, but I'll normally spend a little bit longer on my first passage than on the others (think 10 minutes, as opposed to
. I've experimented with doing passages in an unconventional order (i.e. science first, ones with the most questions first, etc.) but I've found that this doesn't really affect my score or my confidence.
My favorite passages are ones that have a bunch of questions and also hard science passages. I hate passages that only have 5 questions. I rarely miss questions on the very first passage that I do, and I miss roughly equal numbers of questions on the remaining three passages.
Thank you for your help!
Okay, I'm obviously with everyone else here who is suggesting drilling. Cut down to one PT a week for the time being; I think that, if you are able to identify the right answer with blind review, what you need to do is to focus on accuracy at the expense of timing. I know it feels like a bit of a step backward, but, right now, you cannot have both. So, still time yourself as you drill, but do give yourself as long as you need to feel confident in your answers. Don't be excessive, but don't walk away from a question if you have serious uncertainty, either. See how long it takes you, on average, to answer those passages without missing more than, say, one or two questions.
Take note of what it feels like to be confident in your choice, so that you can identify better on PTs those questions that require an extra minute. I know that you say that you aren't usually thinking that you selected a correct answer only to discover the opposite, and that's great. But, if you feel that you are likely incorrectly answering around ten questions per section, then you very likely may be missing at least a few "easy" questions. Use instructional scaffolding. The idea is that if you do not have a strong base, if you are weak even with some of the straightforward, base-level questions, then you cannot possibly build up the understanding required to increase your accuracy with those medium and hard ones. Start simple and increase complexity as your understanding develops.
It seems obvious, but I think that in our zealous attempt to increase our scores, we very often skip steps, hoping that we can compensate for weaknesses with other strengths. Review even the basic level stuff that you know you know. I'm re-reading the LSAT Trainer right now, cover to cover. It's annoying, but very productive; I'm finding myself highlighting passages that I had previously given much less consideration. I'm not suggesting that you need to re-read your books, too, but it certainly could not hurt. You are likely to find that you missed things in your first review of, for example, the Manhattan RC, because you hadn't accumulated experience enough with the variety of LSAT questions that is sometimes necessary to make certain connections. If you want to score 170+, then every single question counts. You have to be meticulous.
So, review the fundamentals and drill, drill, drill. When you are scoring consistently well, then you can work on decreasing the time you spend on each individual passage, while still retaining that accuracy.
P.S. I'm going to PM you a very long message that I had sent someone else who had asked my advice in regards to RC. You may find some of it pertinent.
